Iron Grip
by glittergasm
Summary: It didn't take much, just horrible timing and unnecessary shouting, to bring them together. Juice had plans to keep her away. Charlotte had plans to ignore his protective posturing, there wasn't much left in her life with meaning after SHIELD's fall besides her best friend and remaining family. (Marvel OC x Jax Soulmate AU, OOC just in case)
1. Chapter 1

The day that he'd met her was nothing truly out of the ordinary. He'd been playing Galaga at some busted up machine in an Brooklyn arcade. She'd sauntered up and outright demanded a go with him. They'd been inseparable ever since. She was different, he'd give her that. Spoiled, privileged, rich, and in so many ways unstoppable; but he'd seen her, the real her. They'd bonded over programming, over robotics, over mechanics. She'd shown him how to tune up a bike, begged him to get his license so that they could ride; in so many ways he'd have never become what his is now if it wasn't for Lotte. She wasn't just the Stark heiress to him, she wasn't some freakish child prodigy. She was the person that had shown him that there was a path to freedom. They spent hours movie marathoning, building from scraps, fucking around with code, running the streets of the boroughs eating cheap chili dogs and laughing their heads off. They'd spend hours on Coney Island, riding the Cyclone until they couldn't stand it and the first time they'd ended up in juvie for possession and she'd been busted out, he heard her no nonsense squabbles until he was right by her side, regardless of Obadiah's stink eye. Charlotte Maria was his best friend, _from the cradle to the grave_ she'd whispered, and he'd known then, as he knew now, that she'd fucking meant it and always would.

Standing outside of Chino with his brothers, seeing her leaning against a Porsche and smiling behind her Ray Bans, he couldn't help but bark out a laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. Clay was giving him a serious side eye but he just marched forward and hauled her into a fierce bear hug that lifted her straight off the ground.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he hoarsely mumbled against her dark hair. "Springing you out of the joint? Why the fuck didn't you call me about this before you went in?" she murmured back. "I showed up at your playhouse two weeks ago and get told you're in the goddamn slammer. What, no love for your bestie?"

"Clubhouse, Lots, the clubhouse."

"What the fuck ever, the world starts falling apart, all I want is my Juice Box, and you're in the fuckin' chink. Think I'd stand for it? Hell no broseph, of course I'd pull all the strings that I could like I was motherfuckin Jepetto," she bit back with a smile.

"Excuse me for forgetting you like to play pretend and run the world in your spare time," he replied with all the snark he could muster.

"There's no pretending about it Juice Box. Well, within reason." Her smile was bitter and strained, but whole nonetheless.

"What's going on?" he asked, concern filling his dark brown eyes.

"Like I said, world's falling apart a bit and I needed some grounding."

It wasn't that he didn't want her there, it wasn't that he didn't need her reassurance after being locked up for seven months, but he knew that she had Jax's name inked across her back left hip, just as he knew Jax had her's across his front left. He was dubious about the whole situation, didn't care to see her heart ripped out regardless of how well he saw the two fitting together if the chance ever called for it. He'd wanted to avoid their meeting for numerous fuckin reasons. The whole goddamn club knew that some _Charlotte Maria_ was Jax's soulmate, shit like that just didn't stay quiet. What they didn't know, however, was that Charlotte Maria was _Charlotte Maria Stark_ and Juice's very fucking best friend.

"I know you hate my job, in the sense that it drastically shortens my life expectancy and puts me in fuckin ridiculous situations, but shit has hit the fan and you know that I built that place a few miles away from Charming. So, I'll be there for the foreseeable future."

"What's happened?"

"Well, SHIELD was infiltrated by Hydraand proceeded to well, fall. Ergo, my already suspicious nature has flared even more. Pops wasn't thrilled with me taking off, but you know that the tower can't hold me for long without experimental explosions or sheer stubbornness of will wrecking havoc."

"Well, you're not lying."

"Yep. So, introduce me to your fellows that I've similarly broken out?

Juice looked down at her for a long moment, remembering that panicked phone call as she redirected a nuke into a wormhole with nothing but her bright, shining eyes on screen and the consequent moment of the call blacking out and watching her plummet towards Manhattan in a powerless suit. He'd seen her at her worst, at her best, at her manic mechanic phases. For some reason, in spite of all that, this felt like losing.

"Lotte, I'd like you to meet Clay, Jax, Happy, Bobby and Tig."

Shaking each of their hands with a grin she replied, "Nice to meet the men that keep him in trouble. It's quite the honor to finally meet my proteges."

Clay barked out a laugh and gave her a questioning look. "That might be so, but who the fuck are you?"

The look Lotte shot him could've cut vibranium. "The fuck, Juice Box? Do you not sing my wondrous odes? I'm Charlotte Motherfucking Maria fuckin' Stark and I've busted you out of Chino. I also slaughtered this boy at Galaga before he could fuck, so there's always that." The blank faces she got in return seemed to answer her question, unknowing of the bomb she had unwittingly dropped on them, she shrugged. "Anyway, charges are dropped and your asses are free. So, shall we move onward gentlemen?"

Grinning, she smacked a kiss to Juice's cheek and hopped into her car, oblivious to the dark, questioning look Jax sent Juice's way, and powered off down the highway towards what would be the adventure of her life.

"What the fuck, Juice?" Jax all but growled.

"Why, I don't know what you could possibly mean." Juice responded with an almost innocent air.

"My soulmate?"

"Whose to say…"

"Oh, so she doesn't have _Jackson Nathaniel_ written anywhere on her body?"

The guilty look on Juice's face was enough confirmation for all of them. "I don't tempt fate. You had your own shit going for you. First with Wendy and Abel, now with the doc, you've gotta understand that she's my best friend. I knew her before I patched. Hell, I probably wouldn't have even become who I am without her, so excuse me for being a teensy bit overprotective."

"How about we back up to the part where she sprung us outta here?" Clay butted in with the shocking voice of reason.

"Well, I'm going to assume you all missed her last name, _Stark_." Juice whispered.

"The fuck does that have to do with anything?" Bobby asked.

"She's Tony Stark's daughter. Ironsides." Juice mumbled. "She's got the pull to get us out of this shit, she didn't know about it until she popped into see me."

"Wait, _Tony Stark_ , as in _the_ Tony Stark?" Happy sputtered.

"Yep, Tony Stark. Genius, philanthropist, billionaire, playboy. _That_ Tony Stark. Also, Iron Man." Juice replied with a hint of smugness.

"Well damn, that explains us getting busted out." Bobby responded with a hint of wonder.

"Yeah, she's kinda got trick on tricks on tricks up her sleeves. She's competent that way. I'm neck deep in shit and she somehow manages to sniff it out and pull me up by my scruff, the fact that it took her this long means serious shit has gone down," Juice replied. He didn't elaborate but the no bullshit look on his face said enough for everyone else.

"Well, let's ride home and get the lay of the land," Clay butted in.

"Ha, you honestly think Gemma doesn't know? The fact that she'd been around the clubhouse only guarantees that she's wrapped everyone around her fingers and screamed her head off about not knowing sooner. They're all gonna be aware that we're on our way back." Juice replied with mirth.

Jax couldn't help but grin. He'd not spoken a work to Charlotte, but he could already picture shit in his mind. She was gorgeous, brilliant, ballsy, and knew how to push things around in her favor. He could understand Juice's reticence in informing Jax that he knew his soulmate, but he was still pissed. Maybe the Tara mess could've been avoided, maybe..nevertheless, he knew now, it'd only be a little work to confirm everyone's suspicions. He let everyone's questioning gazes wash over him, he was somewhat used to the inquiries. He remembered seeing the marks on his skin when he was younger, eventually asking his Ma, her look of complete wonderment before telling him that one day that'd be his Old Lady, his bitterness over the wait, leading him to settling into Tara out of sheer stubbornness and lust. Now he had a mission, now he had a goal.


	2. Chapter 2

It didn't take much to bring her into conscious awareness of her fucked up present, but drowning out her sorrows to blaring music certainly worked wonders. She'd pulled up into Teller-Morrow at a reasonable hour, stalked into the office and asked for Juice. The blonde-streaked brunette woman stating that he'd been behind bars for a few months had her fuming for a few minutes until she got her shit under control, enough to ask questions and figure out just what the fuck was going on. She felt like she should have won a goddamn prize for not starting to spit out that she was fucking _Ironsides_ and _goddamnit just where the hell was her Juice Box_. Nevertheless, she persisted. Gemma, she'd learned was the woman's name, lightly elaborated and brought Lotte into the clubhouse, where she'd met Opie, Chibs, and Kozick, outright characters if ever she'd met any. They made her miss the team, being here at all made her miss the team, but she pushed on. Cap was in the wind looking for a ghost and everything, everyone worth anything was outright scrambling at the moment. She took the time to get acquainted with the people her Juice Box called family and tried to settle into it. She remembered the compound-like place she'd built a few miles north and felt some semblance of reassurance of the fact that he wasn't as defenseless as he'd thought.

Regardless of working for Fury, working for Pops, Juice was her constant. They kept up communiques, they kept up movie marathons via Skype, they kept up their ridiculousness regardless of how hard and how loudly the world outside banged on them to change, to conform. She couldn't give a fuck if he was outlaw; her Pops had been called the Merchant of Death once upon a time, she'd been in that cave too, matching car battery heart and all. Juice still loved her, still joked with her about who shot first and the merits of their favorite YT-1300 freighter. He saw past the board seat of a fortune 500 company, past the flashy suit she'd made, past the poisoning, past the daring heroics and the bitter death wish she seemed to come with. He still saw the girl with milk braids and an endearing wish to create clean energy regardless of how futile it'd been until her Pops had had a missile blown at him with their own name outfitted on it.

Sometimes she resented him for his hesitancy, other times she just loved him for giving in to the vision she'd had long before their time in that fucking cave in Tora Bora. Nevertheless, the clean energy work made her giddy. Maybe he was resentful that she'd joined up with SHIELD, but it was another part of their legacy, regardless of how bitter it made him. Grandpop had been a founder, Grandpop had wanted better, so she'd strapped herself into a catsuit after swearing loudly and proudly that she may be a Stark, but she wouldn't be making weapons and that had been that. She'd trained and trained and trained. She'd been on countless missions before she'd met the Widow and Hawkeye, nevertheless, she'd admittedly shat herself a tiny bit when the Avengers Initiative was brought to her plate. She'd wanted normal, she hadn't planned for her suit play time to be brought into the whole mess, for her father to be a part of it. Then the helicarrier happened, then Loki happened, then her living room in Stark Tower had been abysmally trashed. Then she'd flown a goddamned nuke into a wormhole before her Pops could get a handle on it, because fucking hell if Pepper was going to raise a Starkling by herself. She'd never forget what she saw when she flew into that wormhole, thankfully JARIVS was ever the thoughtful recorder, never missing a second. He'd captured everything; from her tense murmurs to Juice, to her sarcastic mutterings to the world at large, to the goddamn hoard of a space army she'd stared down and blown up, he'd recorded everything for Pops to see. She'd never been alone in her fear, she never would be.

So when SHIELD fell, she wasn't surprised that JARVIS had dug up Juice's incarceration, she'd just been silently raging that Juice hadn't tried to get out of it, hadn't tried to call her to escape his metaphorical doom. Nevertheless, she wasn't surprised. Juice had a tendency to not want to drag her into his homegrown messes, even though it only made her more bitter.

So her presence on the lot had been a surprise. A shockingly welcome one if what she'd had to go on said anything. Gemma had floundered a bit. The boys had been gobsmacked. How does one explain ridiculous connections when they'd spent the whole of their lives time hiding them? Either way, she wasn't standing for bullshit pretenses any longer. With SHIELD's fall, she'd just been plain out fucking done. She'd served. She'd lied, cheated, schemed, seduced. She'd *tried* to keep on the Stark legacy of preserving freedom rather than just blowing shit up. Juice grounded her, she wasn't going to give him up to some stupid ass prison and she certainly wasn't going to play pretend when it came to getting him released early. Nevertheless, she'd called Coulson, she'd bartered and scraped, and then there she was with her Porsche and her promises. And then, and then there she'd been blasting down the highway going twenty over and smiling because she'd fucking pulled it off.

She'd easily beaten them home by fifteen minutes, then Gem had demanded 'family dinner' the next night and she'd smiled and nodded because what the fuck else can you do when Gemma Teller-Morrow demands family dinner from you? So she'd planned to go, even though everything in her was screaming for her to fucking run. Giving into Gemma had been entirely unnerving, as if she'd faced off with Pepper and come away swearing that she'd be out of the workshop and shuffling herself all fresh and clean into some designer duds before a benefit. Either way, the woman had won and she found herself burnt out, rambling off her goodbyes and heading back home in order to seek out some form of familiarity.

Now she found herself in her workshop, music on blast and vodka in hand as she tinkered and contemplated how exactly she found herself in a California spot that wasn't Malibu. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't sad, she missed the team, she missed what had been her normal. She felt raw and bitter at having to make her own new version of it. But she'd manage, she always had.


End file.
